


Liar

by Lulzy (likelolwhat)



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Drinking, Implied/Referenced Torture, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-23 15:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likelolwhat/pseuds/Lulzy
Summary: if you know their language, animals never lie. left unsaid:people do.A Kieran-centric fic.
Relationships: Kieran Duffy/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Liar

His pappy told him once, when Kieran first showed interest in horses, that if you know their language no animal will ever lie.

It was one of his more coherent memories of his father, and one of his favorites from a time before people started dying on him. A sage piece of advice that he only recently started turning over, looking at it from all angles, looking for the untruth — for, he found, animals may not lie but people do.

Hell, even he did, the longest he ever maintained one being those awful weeks as a prisoner of Dutch van der Linde and his family. Even knowing he was as bad at lying as the horses he loved, knowing they knew he was lying too, even the gnawing pain in his belly wasn’t enough to break him. He didn’t lose sight of the fact that he was far safer left to an angry Dutch than an indifferent Colm. He’d helped move too many bodies to think of Dutch’s idea of torture as anything but laughable.

Until the gelding tongs, of course.

But, the incident brought back his pappy’s words. Animals never lie. Left unsaid: people do.

Maybe he was alone in preferring animals to people. He poured out his life story to Sean one night, earning a strange look from the other man, as if he hadn’t expected an answer at all. But it was the truth, if a condensed version. (He liked to think he’d never tell the whole army thing through, but that’s just because no one ever asked.) Then, from beyond the fire, where he’d obviously been listening in, Arthur remarked that he’d always have horses. It was meant to be teasing, Kieran could tell, but it comforted him anyway. In horses he had purpose, a way to be useful to the van der Lindes lest he lose their protection. And in Branwen in particular he had a friend.

Mary-Beth tried to get him to join the group at the fire nightly, but it was awkward enough with just one other person, never mind the whole lot. Despite her and Karen’s insistence that he was one of them, he never felt comfortable with the others.

He hadn’t felt truly comfortable in years.

He knew he was the problem, a gangly, stuttering child became a gangly, stuttering man. Self-awareness did nothing to help; it was worse the more he thought about it, anxieties tripping over each other in his head until he had to retreat, laughter that wasn’t always real dogging his footsteps.

Eventually he crossed that invisible threshold: more time as a van der Linde than as their prisoner. Breathing became easier, like he was getting used to living on a mountain. He contemplated leaving the camp, even, just for a bit. But then someone — usually Arthur — would mention spotting Kieran’s “friends” lurking about, and he’d rethink that plan.

Arthur — now that was an odd thing. He was prickly at best, and put on a tough show, but he didn’t have to warn Kieran at all. Oh, he disguised it, a throwaway line about him keeping an eye on Kieran in case he ran off.

He didn’t consider himself astute, but he saw through that one. Just a different kind of lie. But this one he didn’t mind, if it made Arthur feel better about telling him there were O’Driscolls about. If Arthur wanted to keep up appearances for appearances’ sake, it was hardly the strangest thing about him. Arthur walked a fine line. His words bit deep but he was so gentle with the women, and his horse, a creature that depended on him as much as he depended on her.

Kieran would have thought him the cold-hearted bastard he presented as if not for this — and Micah and Bill were right there, being actual bastards.

When Bill, drunk off his ass and looking for trouble, pinned Kieran to the dirt and spoke of getting his balls for stew, Arthur didn’t have to intervene. He could have just continued to stand there, cigarette glowing in the dying light, eyes not visible but rather _felt_. Bill was just after fear, not blood, though Kieran’s brain refused to tell his heart that. Arthur flicked his cigarette, ashes scattering, and called Bill off the scent before Kieran could piss himself or something equally embarrassing. God knew he’d done enough squealing.

He tried to thank Arthur, the next morning in relative privacy. The enforcer scowled and muttered something about Kieran keeping the whole camp awake. But he pulled his hat down too late to hide the color rising high in his cheeks.

In another, better world, Arthur wouldn’t need to make an excuse. As another, stronger man, Kieran might have pressed the issue.

But he retreated instead, before Arthur could feel obliged to prove himself with violence. That was the crux of it. He still didn’t know Arthur all that well, to say for certain that he would or would not. Oh, but he wanted to.

He was surprised when Arthur agreed to go fishing with him, but Kieran ended up doing most of the talking. Another waste. But Arthur’s grin when he caught the biggest bluegill Kieran’d ever seen was worth it. His heart did that terrible-terrific lurch, and he knew immediately that he’d been stupid enough to fall in love.

He wasn’t a teenager anymore. He knew, he knew that the dizzying heights he reached when Arthur was around would just make the fall all the worse.

Time made it worse. Absence made it worse. The knowing, if sad looks Mary-Beth kept shooting him made it unbearable. But he had endured torture before, he thought, and he could endure this.

The night Jack returned, Kieran downed a bottle of whiskey and tried to make smalltalk with Pearson, of all people, while Arthur smiled and laughed and sang to the strumming of Javier’s guitar just a few feet away. God, just a few more drinks and it wouldn’t matter. He could make an utter ass of himself and not care.

He finished his second bottle, the tension in his legs, in his stomach, in his eyes, in his brain beginning to melt away with the burn of alcohol. The third was something else, maybe moonshine from the way his eyes watered, but with it he finally lost the battle he’d been trying to throw all night. He staggered to the steps, sat down hard while the world spun merrily around him.

He didn’t realize what he was mumbling, over and over, until Arthur looked up, furrowed his brow.

“Arthur…”

God, even blurred at the edges and more than tipsy himself Arthur was…

Arthur was right in front of him, looking down at him with an expression he couldn’t hope to decipher. “What is it, Kieran?”

His name. Oh, he was a fool. If his face had been warm before now it was an inferno, and he was ready to pass out from the heat.

But even drunker than he’d ever been, he couldn’t speak the words that leapt to his tongue, ready to spill forth. 

_Lie._

He swallowed. “Nothin’, Arthur.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hello this has been sitting mostly done in my files for - nine months? thereabouts - but I finally got to finish it. So if the ending is a bit off, I'm sorry.
> 
> ~~and yes this goes exactly the way you're thinking~~


End file.
